Chocolate Coffee Ganache

• 4 oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped small
• 2 oz heavy cream
• 1/2 tsp granulated instant coffee

1. Heat the heavy cream and coffee in a saucepan over medium heat until it just starts to simmer.  Be sure to stir so the cream doesn’t scorch on the bottom of the pan.
2. Pour the cream over the chocolate, wait for a minute, then start stirring in the middle of the bowl in tight circles and work your way out, until the ganache is smooth.
3. Pour over the middle of the cake (once the cake is cooled) and spread towards the edges with an offset spatula.  Allow to drip down the sides of the cake.

Cream Scones

• 2 cups flour (I used pastry flour)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup unsalted butter, COLD, cut into pieces
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• additional cream to brush on top

1. Place flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in mixer, and mix with a paddle attachment, just to combine ingredients.
2. Cut butter into small pieces, and add to the dry ingredients.  Either cut in with two forks/knives or a pastry cutter until butter starts to mix.  Then put mixer back on and leave on medium-low until the mixture looks granular.
3. In a small bowl, whisk the egg, vanilla, and heavy cream.  Add this to the other ingredients, and mix until there are no dry ingredients left in bottom of bowl.
4. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface, and knead slightly until dough starts to look slightly smooth.
5. Pat into a circle, and roll out slightly to get to about 1/2″ – 3/4″ thick.  Using a round cutter (2 1/2″ in diameter) cut circles out and place on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. Place scones about 2 inches apart on pan.
6. Brush the top of the scones with a little bit of heavy cream, then place in oven to bake for 15-18 minutes.
7. Scones are done when bottom is browned, top is golden, and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
8. Put on a wire rack to cool.

Donut Glaze

• 1/3 cup butter
• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 4 tablespoons hot water or as needed

1. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.
2. Once butter is melted, add in vanilla and confectioner’s sugar, stirring until smooth.  Remove from heat.
3. Add in hot water as needed just to thin glaze (I ended up using only 2 Tbsp).
4. If the glaze starts to set, stir with a spatula first.  If it is still too thick, put over heat again for a few seconds until it regains a liquid texture.

Fried Yeast Donuts

• 2 (.25 ounce) envelopes active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 quarts vegetable oil for frying

1. Put the yeast, warm water, and a small amount of the sugar (maybe 1 Tbsp) in your mixing bowl and stir slightly just to combine.  Let sit until the yeast starts to get foamy (around 3-5 minutes).  IMPORTANT: Do not have too warm of water or you will kill the yeast.
2. Add the milk, remaining sugar, salt, eggs, and shortening and mix just to start to combine.  Add in two cups of the flour, and mix with a paddle attachment until a dough starts to form.
3. Add in remaining flour in 1/2 cup increments, continuing to mix with paddle until dough is too thick – then switch to a dough hook.  I mixed my dough on medium high speed this whole time to help develop the gluten in the flour and get the dough nice and elastic.
4. Put dough into a greased bowl and cover to the surface with plastic wrap.  Place in a warm location and let dough double in size.
5. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and roll out to approximately 1/2″ thick.  Using 3″ and 1″ round cutters, cut donut shapes out of your dough and place on a piece of foil sprayed with cooking spray.  Take remaining dough and knead together slightly, just to combine.  Roll out again and cut more donuts if possible.  Cover donuts with plastic wrap and let double in size.
6. In the meantime, put your oil in a large pot and heat to 350 degrees. (the original recipe only calls for 1 qt of oil, but when I poured that in my pot, there was NO way that would last for all my donuts, not to mention it was only about 1 – 1 1/2″ deep in the pot).
7. Place donuts carefully (I did 4 at a time) into the oil, allowing to fry for approximately 2 minutes per side (watch carefully so they don’t get too dark).  Remove from oil with a large slotted spoon, then put on a rack to cool.
8. Once donuts are cool enough to touch (but still warm), dip in glaze.  If you are making cinnamon sugar donuts, combine 2 cups sugar + 4 Tbsp cinnamon.  Dip donuts into melted butter just to coat, then toss in cinnamon sugar mixture.

Monkey Bread

• 3 containers of 12-oz refrigerated biscuit dough
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 Tbsp cinnamon
• 1 stick of margarine
• 1 cup of packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

1. Prepare a bundt pan or Angel Food pan by spraying with cooking spray or greasing.  Preheat oven to 350.
2. Open biscuit dough and quarter all of the biscuits.  Take sugar and cinnamon, and run through a sifter to mix.  I ran mine through a sifter 3 or 4 times to make sure everything was mixed very well.
3. Toss the biscuit pieces in the cinnamon sugar in a baggie – at most 6-8 biscuit pieces at a time.  Place the coated biscuits in a pan.  If you are adding nuts into the mix, start sprinkling nuts over each layer you create.  If you would like, sprinkle some of the cinnamon sugar mixture over as well, as you will have a lot left over.
4. Once all biscuits are coated and in the pan, put the margarine and brown sugar in a small sauce pan over medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring frequently.
5. Pour brown sugar/margarine mixture over the biscuit dough, trying to evenly cover.
6. Bake for approximately 35 minutes.  If you use 3 packs of Grands biscuits, bake for 45-50 minutes.  Remove from oven and let sit in pan for 10 minutes to cool, then flip out onto a plate and enjoy!

Puff Pastry

• Bread flour – 1 lb (500 g)
• Salt – 0.33 oz (10 g)
• Butter, melted – 2.5 oz (75 g)
• Water – 8 oz (250 g)
• Butter, for rolling in – 9.5 oz (300 g)

1. Put the flour and salt in a bowl and mix.  Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture.  
2. Pour the melted butter and water into the well, and mix with a spoon until a dough starts to form.
3. Once you reach this stage, turn the dough out onto the counter and knead by hand until a cohesive dough is formed.
4. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and let it sit in the refrigerator for a half hour to relax, so the gluten can develop.
5. When you remove the dough from refrigerator, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface.  Take a rolling pin, and roll it out into a long rectangle.  You want this to be as exact of a rectangle as possible, so what I did was take a ruler and repeatedly push it up against the edges of the dough to ensure that I had straight edges all the way around.
6. Your next step is to take the second amount of butter and put it between two sheets of parchment or plastic wrap.  Then take out your aggression and BEAT THAT BUTTER!  Go ahead and pound on the butter to soften it up.  After you have softened it, start doing the same thing you did with the dough, and shape it into a rectangle – you want this to be around 2/3 the size of your rolled-out dough.
7. Then you need to take your butter and flip it out onto your dough 
8. After this you want to take the empty side of the dough (in this case on the right side) and fold it over the butter.  Use a pastry brush, bench brush, or paint brush (only used for baking of course!) and brush off the excess flour.  Then take your left side and fold it over (carefully, because you are folding the butter!) so you end up with a little packet, similar to a three-fold brochure.
9. At this point you want to rotate your dough from the above position so it is rectangle with the short side facing you.  Take your rolling pin in both hands and lightly beat down on the dough, with the rolling pin parallel to the short side of the rectangle.  You want to be sure to do this with even pressure – if you hit at the dough from one side (i.e. taking the rolling pin in one hand and just wacking at it),  all of the butter will shift over to one side of the dough, and you definitely do NOT want that.
10. After you have lightly beaten the dough, begin to roll the dough out into another long rectangle.  This rectangle should be LONGER than the one you rolled previously – thus it should be thinner.  Be careful as you roll it, applying even pressure throughout – otherwise you will squeeze the butter out.  Just like before, use some sort of straight edge to make this rectangle as straight and exact as possible.  After your rectangle is rolled out, take the short sides, and fold them in toward the middle.
11. Before you do anything else, take your brush and get rid of all of the excess flour.  Any flour left in will give the insides a grayish look after baking (it’s not pretty!)  After this, you take this and fold it closed like a book
12. This, once completed, is called a Four-Fold.  All of these folds are what help to give puff pastry its delightful crispy layers.
13. At this point, you need to wrap this in plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for at least 3o minutes.  You will need to do four four-folds on this dough, which in the end will give you 1028 layers of dough and butter (crazy, right??).  When you start each four-fold, follow the rectangle as it’s already laid out for you.  Between each four-fold, let the dough rest for 30 minutes in the refrigerator, wrapped up.
14. At the end of your final four-fold, you have puff pastry that is ready to use!

Pâte Sucrée (for Strawberry Rhubarb Tart)

• 9.4 oz butter, softened
• 3.8 oz powdered sugar
• .08 oz fine sea salt
• .08 oz lemon zest
• 5 drops vanilla extract
• 3.8 oz eggs*
• 15 oz pastry flour

1. Sift powdered sugar and set aside.
2. Put butter in mixer with paddle attachment, and mix on low just to soften and spread.
3. Add powdered sugar to butter, and mix until creamy.
4. Combine eggs and vanilla in a measuring cup with a spout or a separate bowl (the cup is easier to pour from).
5. Add salt and lemon zest to flour and toss with your hands until the zest is mixed and coated.
6. Add the egg mixture to the butter mixture in small amounts (around 3 or 4 additions), mixing after each addition to fully incorporate.  When doing this, the mix looked like it was initially curdling, so after each egg addition, I scraped the bowl, and that helped it turn into a smooth mixture.
7. Add flour mixture in additions to the butter/egg mixture, and mix until fully incorporated.
8. Toss out onto countertop and knead a few times to make sure the flour is fully incorporated.
9. Place dough on a sheet of parchment paper, and cover with a second sheet of parchment.  Roll dough out into a circle around 3/4″ thick, wrap up in the parchment and plastic wrap, and place in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before using.

Streusel Topping (for Strawberry Rhubarb Tart)

• 2 oz butter
• 1.25 oz sugar
• 1 oz brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 4 oz pastry flour

1. Mix brown sugar, butter, and sugar and flour on medium low speed to combine.
2. Once mixture starts to look a little clumpy, add the cinnamon.
3. Once finished, the mixture should look like little balls of dough.
4. Store in a sealed container in refrigerator until use.

Sweet Tomatillo Salsa (with Chocolate Chipotle Cake)

• 1/2 pound fresh tomatillos, husked, rinsed, and chopped into a small dice
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 Tbsp white sugar
• 1 1-inch piece of cinnamon stick

1. Place all ingredients in a saucepan over medium heat, and allow to simmer for approximately 15 minutes, or until tomatillos are tender.
2. Remove the cinnamon stick and discard; place remaining ingredients carefully into a food processor and run until smooth (there will still be seeds present).
3. Chill in a covered container until serving.

Tuile Cookies

100 g softened unsalted butter
100 g powdered sugar
100 g egg whites
75 g flour

1. Mix butter and sugar in a mixer with a paddle attachment until combined.
2. Add in egg whites in a slow stream, until completely combined.
3. Mix in flour until a batter is formed
4. Spread onto a tracer on a silpat-lined sheet pan as thin as possible.  Remove tracer and bake at 425 F until tuiles are golden brown.
5. Put latex gloves on hands.  Remove pan from oven and, with gloved hands, turn tuiles into desired shapes immediately before they cool.
6. Allow tuiles to cool.

Vanilla Custard Sauce  (with Chocolate Chipotle Cake)

• 2 cups half-and-half
• 1/2 cup sugar, divided
• 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs

1. In a bowl whisk the eggs and approximately half of the sugar until they are frothy.
2. In a saucepan, place half-and-half, the remaining sugar, and the vanilla extract over medium heat, bringing just to a simmer.  
3. Stream approximately half of the warm cream mixture into the eggs while whisking.  Pour the egg mixture back into the remaining cream in the saucepan, and replace over medium heat.
4. Stir mixture with a wooden spoon and allow to thicken.  When mixture starts to coat the back of a spoon, remove from heat.  Pour through a sieve into a bowl.
5. Place the bowl containing the custard mixture into an ice bath, and continue to stir until the mixture is thickened and completely cool.*
6. Chill in an airtight container until ready to be served.

* I have made custard, creme anglaise, and pastry cream several times, and this recipe did NOT turn out like those – it was more of a gravy-like consistency than an actual custard.  I’m guessing this is the intention because it is called a “custard sauce”.